Give and Take
by thirteenharmonies
Summary: Sometimes, life gave you things. Beautiful things that filled your world with colour, things that made you laugh, things that you understood and understood you, things that loved you and you loved. But sometimes, when your world is complete, life took away things. Beca realized that sometimes, she could fight life when it took things and keep what she wanted.


**AN: So I took a break from studying and ended up writing this instead of working on Knight In Shining Armour. This one will probably be a multi chapter fic and I'll vary which fanfic I'll update. The idea had been brewing in my head for a while now and I guess it needed to get out. So here it is! Read, review and enjoy! :D **

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Sometimes, life gave you things. Beautiful things that filled your world with colour, things that made you laugh, things that you understood and understood you, things that loved you and you loved. But sometimes, when you're feeling like you're on top of the world, your world is complete, life took away things. It tears it out of your desperate grip, you cry, you scream, you fight, you run. It doesn't matter. Life does what it likes. Your world fades to black and white, you can barely force a grin, you don't even know who this empty shell who was once someone so alive is, you don't think you can love any more. Your world is broken, shattered into a million pieces and some of those pieces are lost. You hit rock bottom and each day, rock bottom is darker than the day before.

Beca Mitchell knew this. Her life had been a prime example of how life gave her things, things that made her who she was today, and how life ripped away everything that she loved, she was broken. She was born into a proper family. Life gave her a loving mom, and a loving dad. It gave her a good start, her parents weren't rich, but they weren't poor. Life was good to her. Then life took away her loving family, the dad that taught her how to ride a bike, the mom that showed her how to bake minty chocolate chip cookies. Her dad left, storming out of the house, and her mom spiraled downwards into depression. Beca hated life, the modest home that she had grown up in became a shabby one room apartment, she never spent much time there anyways.

When it seemed that Beca had lost faith in life, life came back. And it gave Beca her best friend and her passion, music. It was kind of a package deal kind of thing. A crappy apology of sorts, a 'Hey! Sorry for leaving you like that. It was really rude of me to take away your family. So I'll give you two things to make up for it okay?' Her best friend was everything Beca could hope for, they understood each other were inseparable. It was her best friend who in turn introduced her to her lifelong passion. Beca was only eleven. They were at school one day, after school, the school play was tonight. Neither of them were in it, but neither of them wanted to go home, or leave the other. They hung out in the band room, pretending they were helping but really just staying out of everyone else's way.

There was a guitar, sitting there and her best friend had picked it up. They were goofing off, just plucking at strings curiously. But before long notes flowed smoothly from those six strings. A simple progression of notes, but it was enough to capture Beca's heart, mind and soul forever. That evolved to more complex harmonies, and eventually Beca left the guitar behind and opted for a laptop but her best friend never quite did. The two of them picked up a turntable after months of saving and busking on the streets with that guitar.

But when Beca hit her second year of high school, life came back. And without warning, it wrenched her best friend away. Her best friend, that brilliant guitarist, that amazing little genius. Beca never saw it coming, someone who was such a big part of her world, suddenly, poof. Gone. It left a gaping void in her life and Beca was broken again. But she was lucky, life left her music. It could've taken that with her best friend. You don't know what you have until it's gone right? So Beca let music fill her life, it filled that void that her best friend had left behind and Beca found herself going through high school with no friends at all. But life had given her a dream now, she was going to go to LA and become a DJ. Nothing could stop her. Or so she thought.

Following her graduation, life gave her father back. Her good for nothing, remarried father who was teaching at Barden University. Sure he was trying to make up for not being there and all that but Beca didn't care. It gave her Barden, and Beca hated it at first. But life kept giving, it gave her Jesse, and Luke. It gave her the internship job at the radio station. Sure, it sucked having to stack CD's all the time. But Beca couldn't really complain, life was pleasant. Then life got a this weird idea in its head and gave her Chloe, that forever smiling, sapphire eyed, flaming hair beauty. Then of course she came with Aubrey, then the rest of the Bellas.

Life was better than Beca could remember it being for a long time. Sure life was tiring and Aubrey was so stubborn. But Beca couldn't complain. Then life came back with that stupid cliche lesson. The 'you don't know what you have until it's gone." It took away that nice, kind, trying to understand father. It took away Jesse. It also took away the Bellas. It seemed that Beca hadn't learned her lesson the first time. She spent a lot of time by herself, there was nobody else around anyways. Sure life gave her the booth at the radio station, but that seemed hardly a consolation prize for what it had taken. Beca spent many a broken night in that booth, diving into her work and her mixes, trying to fix her world, her walls.

Fortunately, life was kind and she got all of that back, and more. The Bellas got back into the finals, her father was trying to be more supportive, some guy in LA heard one of her mixes through Luke and liked them, the Bellas won the ICCA's and she got Jesse. Then life did something crazy, it gave her a second chance. It wasn't until nearly two weeks of dating Jesse that she realized that this was not who she wanted to be with. Beca was lucky, Jesse was understanding, he let her go without a fight and they remained close friends to this day. Life gave her Chloe Beale and Beca was damned to left anything screw this up.

The remaining few months of the school year was bliss, Beca couldn't remember the last time she had been this happy. It had turned out that Chloe liked her back and the two started on what seemed to be the greatest relationship of Beca's life. They went on countless dates and spent endless nights, wrapped around each other, just listening to Beca's mixes. Honestly, Beca was scared, things were getting really serious and rather quickly. She was afraid of getting hurt, of being broken again. Chloe had phased so easily through her walls, walls that only one other person had been behind before. Beca learned that every time it seemed like the world was hers, life came back and put another mountain in between.

This time, it came in the form of a phone call. It was a test maybe. But that guy in LA, he really liked her mixes and he offered her a short two week internship at his recording company. He would set her up to open at this one club and if things went well, she could get a recording deal. Life was giving her an opportunity. Except that Chloe had wanted her to spend the summer with her. Chloe's aunt had terminal cancer and she wanted Beca to meet her before she passed on. Chloe and her aunt had always been really close, her aunt having been the one who really started Chloe on music.

So the two of them fought, Beca never expected it to go this way. She thought that Chloe would understand, this was her big break. But these fights turned into screaming matches, worsened only by the fact that it reminded her of how her parents ended. In the end, Beca did the only thing that she was ever good at, run. She ran from Chloe, she withdrew into her cold exterior that she had started with and refused to talk to Chloe any more. Beca knew it would end this way. Hadn't she learned that yet. Chloe was dangerous to her, someone who could break through her walls so effortlessly was Beca's kryptonite. Not that she was Superman.

Beca never turned up to Chloe's graduation, never responded to Chloe's texts, not even the one that announced their break up. All Beca could do was sit there in her dorm, broken. So when school finally let out, Chloe was unsurprised to find that she was by herself on the plane out to New York. She didn't think Beca would come around and suddenly decide to go to New York with her. When she got off the plane, and there was no Beca sitting there, smirking, waiting to surprise her, it seemed to really hit her that maybe, the best thing to happen to her was over. The entire ride home, in her dad's car, she was crying, head buried in her mom's shoulder.

Beca had taken herself away from Chloe, and taken what life had given her. She flew out to LA and started at the recording company. First few days, she was a mess. Still trying to get herself together. In all honesty, Beca probably would've blown the internship, and probably the club gig. But it seemed like life decided that it would make up for everything that it had taken from Beca before. Life gave Beca a best friend. Not just any best friend. Life gave Beca her best friend back. Her best friend, her brilliant little genius of a best friend.

That was all Beca needed. The appearance of her best friend was like magic. The old, snarky, sarcastic, witty Beca was back. Her performance after being reunited with her best friend easily offset her crappy days from earlier and was invited to come back for another internship. Like last time, when life gave Beca her best friend, it was a package deal, this time, it gave her a start on her career. The two of them started DJing together, it was a crazy idea at first, but the guy at the recording company really dug it and got them gigs, as a pair. To say it was successful was an understatement, the two of the were rising quickly to fame, easily become the most popular and only DJ duo in LA.

But life decided that it would give Beca some responsibilities. And Beca had no choice but to accept these responsibilities even though she doubted her own abilities. She had to if she wanted her best friend to stay in her life. That's when Beca realized something. Her mistake. She needed Chloe back. She would get Chloe back, life be damned. Beca had an epiphany. What if life gave and took for a reason? What if. Life didn't just take away things, but it took them and saved them. It saved those brilliant things that lit up your world for a time when you needed them most? A time when you were finally capable of appreciating them? A time when you've gone below rock bottom, when it feels like the end of the world, it gives you something to bring you back to the surface?

Her experiences in LA had shown her that. If not for the sudden reappearance of her best friend Beca surely would've gone off the deep end. Life hadn't taken away her father forever either, it gave him back when she needed him most. So life had to give Chloe back. But Beca didn't know when that would be, or what would happen for that to happen. Or if she would ever get Chloe back. Life had taken her mother from her and had never given her back. Maybe she would never get Chloe back either. No, Beca couldn't, she couldn't let this happen. Too many times, she had let life push her around, give and take as it had pleased. This time, she was standing her ground. She was going to get Chloe back. The blame was on her this time, life hadn't taken Chloe away from her, she had taken herself away from Chloe. Only she could fix it. Life would let her fix it, because she never got her mother back, life owed her enough to let her have the best thing in her life back, Chloe.

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Beca shouldered her bag, it seemed a lot heavier than she remembered. There wasn't anything new in it really. Her laptop, a book, an envelope of documents that she had signed this morning. It was the responsibilities, she surmised, she never had much of it to start with but things were really going to change now. She had to get Chloe back, that much she knew. At the very least she had to set things right. Smiling at the woman behind the counter, she handed over her passport and boarding ticket. The new badass DJ Beca Mitchell was on her way back to Barden, this time, she had life pinned right where she wanted it.


End file.
